Rômulo joins IDS as a Senior International Associate primarily located within the Rising Powers programme. He is an epidemiologist and public policy evaluation and monitoring expert, interested on poverty eradication policies, social protection policies, social inequality indicators, and Geographical Information System (GIS) techniques applied to social and urban studies.

He is Director of the UNDP World Centre for Sustainable Development. He is also Honorary Associate of the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex. He was Deputy Minister of Social Development and Fight against Hunger of Brazil (December 2009 to May 2012), and National Secretary of Evaluation and Information Management in the same institution (March 2004 to May 2007).

He had worked as international adviser and consultant in social protection policy and monitoring and evaluation for UNDP, FAO, IADB, PAHO, World Bank and DFID. In Brazil, he worked as adviser at municipal, state and federal levels. He was responsible for the design and implementation of the monitoring and evaluation system of the Ministry of Social Development of Brazil. At the international level, he was responsible for advising the government of South Africa in setting up the National Evaluation and Monitoring System for Social Protection Policies.

He has also worked in UK, Egypt, Mauritius and Honduras. He has published six books on epidemiology or monitoring and policy evaluation, and several articles on scientific journals.